Letter from Beijing 4: Poets from the Yangtze River 北京来信：来自长江/ 汉水的湖北诗人 by Ming Di This week in Beijing’s packed with events. After the final reading yesterday (October 12, 2017), Tracy K. Smith returned to the states. Kevin Young and John Yau along with the Mexican poet Mario Bojórquez went to Wuhan for a 3 day …
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Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017) Edited By: Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky In the winter of 2013-2014, Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was filled with smoke. You could hear gunshots in the streets. Signs inside the protesters’ encampment in Maidan said “Fear Not Permitted.” While the vast majority of the protesters …
Life and Times — On John Robert Lee’s Collected Poems 1975-2015 By Vladimir Lucien About a month ago, I saw Robert Lee having lunch with a few of his mates. “Old boys”, I thought to myself (which is what his alma mater —also mine— calls their alumni). Something about the collegial, somewhat mischievous laughter, and …
LETTER FROM BEIJING 3: HOW WOULD LI BAI WRITE TODAY? 北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？ LIGHT UP By Chen Dongdong 陈东东 Light up an oil lamp in the rocks so they can see the sea. Let them see the sea and the antique fish. See the light too, a lamp held high on the hill. Light …
Letter from Beijing 3: How would Li Bai Write Today? 北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？ Read More »
In the River by Carmen Radley Last May, on a warm Friday evening, I stood on the north bank of the Rio Grande. I gazed south and noted that the landscape—from the dust the color of linen that puffed at each footfall to the writhing ridge of mountains blue with distance—was sublime but desiccated, …
Letter from Paris April 2017 from Margo Berdeshevsky DARK DAWN THOUGHTS WITH POETRY FOR SUSTENANCE STILL APRIL A grackle fallen on hard sand. One eye on a hunger, singing off-key in the dark times. Sun, fallen asleep behind its soul, again. No longer the first century of world wars. It is our 21st. Mourners’ tatters …
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In the Belly of Words By Durs Grünbein An Essay in Honor of Aleš Steger A few days ago, I was surprised by a news report. In the article, I read that there is now a »World Stroke Day« (it’s on October 29th). It is observed just like the »World Toilet Day«, just like …
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北京来信 2：北漂诗人和企业家诗人 Letter from Beijing 2: Chinese poets, drifters and entrepreneurs Introduced and translated by Ming Di, a Chinese poet living between Beijing and California, editor of New Cathay –Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Tupelo Press, 2013) March 2017 “Drifters” in Beijing In My Poetry By Qiu Huadong 邱华栋 I want to eat the sunflowers, the insects and air …
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‘A Dark and Coming Thing’: Badmind in Caribbean Literature By Vladimir Lucien It was Lorna Goodison’s latest book that first made me aware of our canonical Caribbean writers, in older age, speaking more candidly in their work about badmind, as a force —that the abiding malevolence of others is not merely a “social” factor, but …
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Letter from Iraq: Literature between Exile and Detachment By Kusay A Askar When speaking about the Arabic literature of Iraq, it is important to envision it as divided into two parts: literature inside Iraq and what I refer to as emigrant literature, that which is written by Iraqis living abroad. The condition of literature …
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